Dalwhinnie No 2 DCNN 0582 – The true spirit of a good weather station.

56.94020 -4.23800 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1973

Dalwhinnie No 2 weather station is located in mid Northern Scotland. Whilst it is almost equidistant to both east and west coasts it is worth noting that it is actually further west than Exeter is in south “west” England. At 351 metres (1,152 feet) amsl it is not at an especially high altitude relative to its surroundings being in Glen Truim close to the confluence of Allt an t’Sluic Burn and the River Truim and near to the eastern end of Loch Ericht. Though in a sparsely populated area the screen is set in the grounds of a significant local employer who quite evidently care for their weather station as much as the excellent products they produce.

Of all UK Met Office weather stations this is one of those I would personally most like to visit not only for the gorgeous Scottish scenic setting but a trip around the overall site would be most welcome!

Originally installed as a manual reporting site (demonstrated above) the readings were impeccably well taken throughout regardless of the frequent adverse weather experienced there. The site was one of the earlier ones converted to automatic operation (notably so for Scotland which seemed to lag behind England and wales in this regard) in late 1994 and enjoys 52 years of reliably kept readings.

The Met Office CIMO assessment of Class 4 does not make any sense. The site is flat, ground cover excellently well maintained there are no shading issues to consider. The 30 metre and 10 metre radius circles are shown below.

Clearly there is nothing at all other than well kept grass cover within the smaller 10 metre radius circle meaning this really should be considered Class 3 as stated in the CIMO regulations.

The larger 30 metre radius circle does have compromising amounts of hard-standing and car parking areas ruling out Class 2, however, it is reasonable to suggest that this is one of the Met office’s better located sites and clearly well maintained. The lack of an enclosure is a potential demerit but certainly not as bad as the necessity for jet blast screens at (absurdly Met Office claimed) Class 3 Heathrow.

The street view image foreshortens the view of the screen making it appear closer than it is to the parking area. The trees shown are in fact over 100 metres beyond the screen itself.

Dalwhinnie is certainly likely to be representative of this area’s climate in the Glens. Yes the weather is at times very severe here as noted in the article above, but that is simply a feature of this part of Scotland which is often not benign in winter.

I emphasise these points not because I want to ingratiate myself with the Distillery (but if they read this any donations in kind most welcome!) but to highlight how inconsistent Met Office site assessments are. Relatively good open rural locations like Dalwhinnie are frequently marked down such as at Stowe also listed as Class 4 but quite probably the best it can be at Class 1. Conversely it is not only the likes of Heathrow but also Dyce being allegedly the same standard as nearby Craibstone, that are marked as better than they actually are. The reverence given to venerable old sites such as Oxford Radcliffe (walled garden with marquees) or Cambridge Botanic Gardens (kicked out of the CET nearly 100 years ago for UHI) seems entirely disproportionate to their dubious merits.

Dalwhinnie may not be a perfect site, but likely more reliable than most of the Met Office’s offerings – then again I expect Dalwhinnie just records temperatures and does not offer up endless sensationalised dubious “records” that others offer.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/dalwhinnie-no-2-dcnn-0582-the-true-spirit-of-a-good-weather-station/